Rick Perry gets halfway to the clear

We just shouldn't be surprised.

One of two felony indictments against former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was tossed out Friday, giving the Republican presidential candidate a potentially huge legal victory in the face of flagging polling numbers for the 2016 race.

The 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin sided with Perry's pricy legal team, stating in a 96-page ruling that the charge of coercion of a public servant constituted a violation of the former governor's free speech rights.

Perry, who left office in January, was indicted last August on the coercion charge and a separate charge of abuse of official power, which wasn't affected by the ruling.

For now, he'll still have to face the abuse of power charge — which could tie him up in court and eat into valuable on-the-ground campaigning time in the midst of his White House run. But Perry's lead attorney, Tony Buzbee, downplayed the future significance of the case, just as his client has for months, saying it will have "no impact whatsoever" on the campaign.

"One down, one to go," Buzbee said at a Houston news conference. "The court today threw out what we believe to be the greater of the two charges." He added that the abuse of power charge is "hanging by a thread."

Thanks goes to Justice Bob Pemberton, who declined to recuse himself from the case despite the glaring conflicts of interest.  I also had a conversation in a podcast with Brad Friedman of Bradblog about the indictments and their chances back in May.

Michael McCrum, the San Antonio-based special prosecutor leading the case, has long maintained it deserves to go to trial. He said he wasn't certain whether he'd appeal Friday's ruling since it affects an underlying statue that will impact many cases, not just Perry's.

"Obviously we're ready to proceed to trial on the other count," McCrum said, though he noted he doesn't yet know when such a trial would begin because Perry can appeal the abuse of power charge to the Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas' highest criminal court. With that court on summer recess, doing so is "going to cause an extended delay," he said.

Buzbee remains confident he can spring Goodhair.

Buzbee said he considers the remaining charge nothing more than a misdemeanor and said the Court of Criminal Appeals "will throw it out on its face." The abuse of official capacity nonetheless has a maximum sentence of 99 years in prison, while the voided coercion charge carried a 10-year maximum sentence.

I don't see a conviction sticking, I really don't even see a trial even happening anytime soon because of the possible appeal to the CCA, as McCrum mentions.  There are simply too many Republicans who have Rick Perry's back.

See DFW CBS and the Christian Science Monitor for additional insight, including the ramifications on his presidential bid.  And again Charles with more and many links to others.

We don't need another HERO referendum *Update*

But we will get one anyway.

The saga over a Houston city law that protects LGBT people from discrimination just took a sudden turn. The Texas Supreme Court intervened in the court fight over the effort to repeal the initiative, ordering that the Houston City Council must either repeal HERO on its own or allow it to be challenged at the ballot in the next election. Either way, the city can no longer enforce it.

[...]

According to the Court, all that mattered is that the City Secretary initially certified the referendum. It doesn’t matter what was discovered later about the validity of those signatures, or even the fact that the Secretary later acknowledged the flaws that were found. “The Charter requires the City Secretary to ‘certify’ her findings, and the only findings she expressly certified were her own,” the Court explained. It’s as simple as “no takesie-backsies.”

That's legal crapola, but SOP for nine Republicans on the SCOTX (I always enjoy typing that anagram because it rhymes with "Kotex", which is exactly what the Texas Supreme Court is).

It’s unclear if there is any remedy for LGBT advocates, particularly given the ample evidence that there actually were not sufficient signatures. This included video evidence that the petitioners were well aware of the rules they broke that should have invalidated the signatures they collected, evidence of possibly forged signatures, and a jury’s ruling that the valid signatures just did not add up.

Brad Pritchett, who runs the HOUequality site that has defended HERO throughout this process, told ThinkProgress, “The certification has been boiled down to ink on the page. If someone turned in 20,000 forged signatures, this ruling says that as long as there are 20,000 on that page, it counts. No other certification necessary.”

The city is still reviewing its options, but will likely allow the ballot initiative to advance rather than repeal it. Pritchett is optimistic that, particularly given all that it has endured so far, “If HERO is on the ballot this November, there is no doubt that Houstonians will do the right thing and reaffirm the need for HERO once again.”

Pritchett recently left the Harris County Democratic Party to take a job with the ACLU of Texas.  His husband is Noel Freeman, the former chair of the HGLBT Caucus.  I believe he's correct that a ballot up-or-down vote will favor the proponents.  The good news is that the issue should boost turnout for municipal elections just four months away that heretofore have not been generating much in the way of news coverage.

As for the political English (i.e. cue ball spin) I see Chris Bell gaining some advantage over Sylvester Turner, who has been a latecomer to the human rights issues of LBGTQ people.  Update: Towelroad details Turner's bumpy history, including the old rumors of his being homosexual himself.  But the community doesn't seem to be holding any of his past against him, and he has packed the Caucus with over six dozen purchased memberships in advance of the endorsement vote.

Former congressman Chris Bell has been actively encouraging supporters to join and show up for the August meeting, while City Councilman Stephen Costello has pursued what his campaign described as a "low-key effort" to get people to join the caucus' ranks.

Turner, on the other hand, opted to write the group a $3,040 check two weeks ago - enough for at least 76 memberships, according to spokeswoman Sue Davis.

"It's something that's done every year," Davis said.

Not to this extent, Ms. Davis (as we will see in the next excerpt).

Does HERO hate get goosed?  Does this development help Ben Hall, or is Bill King going to try to seize back the mantle of Anti-HERO Crusader?  As referenced in the previous excerpt, it probably doesn't do much for Stephen Costello, despite one of his backers being the afore-mentioned Mr. Freeman.

Former caucus president Noel Freeman, a Costello supporter, said campaigns also purchased or sponsored memberships during his tenure, though not enough to sway the outcome of the endorsement process.

"I never saw an endorsement vote that was so close that (it) would have made a difference," he said, adding that he never saw a campaign purchase more than 45 memberships during his tenure from 2011 to 2013.

We'll also have to watch how this goes with the At-Large city council posts.  AL-1, for example, has Democratic County chair Lane Lewis -- you may recall that a former Texas blogger, to his discredit, demanded and others as well suggested Lewis' resignation -- squaring off with Tom McCasland, who is supported by a large contingent of the most conservative Houston Democrats that I know.  So far he's all about mobility (though there's this Tweet from yesterday).

Charles has more and more linkage to other reactions.